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Medical Packaging

Cost-cutting is a frequent task of today's packaging engineer. Pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers are looking to reduce costs wherever they can, so engineers must balance new packaging development with savings-minded product life cycle management.

But how can packaging engineers possibly juggle this increasing workload? Companies must develop a portfolio management process for prioritizing all projects, advises Stephen Birtsas, a manager with global innovation management consultancy Kalypso.

DuPont Medical Packaging has announced plans to modernize the manufacturing technology behind its longest-standing and most-popular styles of Tyvek. The global manufacturer will transition the manufacturing of Tyvek 1073B and Tyvek 1059B to its latest flash-spinning technology and production lines at its Richmond, VA, and Luxembourg facilities. DuPont Tyvek 2FS and Tyvek Asuron are already produced with the new flash-spinning technology on one of the lines.

Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) East 2011, EastPack, and a number of its sister shows will be held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City June 7–9, 2011, with conferences beginning a day early on June 6. 2011.

As sophisticated as medical device manufacturing technology is these days, in-house labeling information systems at some locations may be lagging behind. One maker of orthopedic devices, for instance, relied solely on paper to document labeling changes, updates, and approvals, amounting to nearly 20,000 sq ft of filing cabinets of paper, reports Matt Warren, technical solutions engineer for VIA Information Tools (www.via-it.com). In such voluminous paper-based environments, updates can get overlooked, and accountability may be hard to trace.

The annual MD&M East and EastPack shows will be co-located in New York City from June 7–10 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The show is scheduled to be co-located under one roof with Atlantic Design & Manufacturing, Automation Technology Expo East, EastPack, PLASTEC East, and Green Manufacturing Expo East. At EastPack 2010, participants can find new equipment, technology, and materials to lower costs, reduce waste, and increase efficiencies.

SHL is continuing to expand operations in the United States with the establishment of SHL Pharma Systems, a state-of-the-art final assembly and packaging operation. Located in South Florida, this new facility will offer final assembly, labeling, and packaging services to SHL's pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers.

HOUSTON, Apr 26, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) --Kraton Performance Polymers, Inc. (NYSE: "KRA"), a leading global producer of styrenic block copolymers or "SBC's" (together with Kraton Polymers LLC and its other subsidiaries "Kraton"), announced plans to invest approximately $27 million in its Belpre, Ohio plant to enable production of Poly-Isoprene Rubber. This strategic decision will allow Kraton to manufacture this product in the U.S. to support increased customer demand and the projected long-term needs of the market.